Wednesday, June 24, 2009

More Evil Roots

I am so far behind with blog updates. That is what happens when life catches up with you!

Anyway, would you believe that one week after snaking out the drain, it blocked up again? This time I did what any sane, intelligent person would do. I asked the wife to call Roto Rooter and schedule for them to come out and clean the thing!

The poor man was here for at least two hours. He got about 2X more roots out of the main sewer drain than I did one week earlier and called for a supervisor to stop out with the "camera." A few days after my drain was professionally cleaned we got it "scoped" to see if we were facing any major problems.

The drain passed with flying colors! In fact, considering the fact that it has been there for at least 113 years it was in remarkably good shape. Three tiles exhibited slight separation. One may be off by one inch due to settling. It had a root protruding through it into the drain. Looks like we dodged the bull(et) dozer this time around. Think of all the money we saved!

I'm not surprised you haven't had time to post on the houseblog lately. Running for mayor is serious business.

As soon as I get my plaster repairs to the point where I can move the ladder off the 3rd floor steps, it won't be long before I can think about SHELLAC for all my nice stripped woodwork! I reread all your shellac posts a month or so ago and I think I understand that with shellac, the color was traditionally in the finish and laid on topically, as opposed to being a penetrating stain with a clear finish over?

That's the one thing I haven't figured out. I have all this trim that has stripped down to various shades and it needs to come out the same traditional dark mahogany brown. I've got some spare pieces I can experiment with, but if I know the best way to approach it from the beginning, I can save a lot of time and materials.